Pope goes walkabout
Deemed the “People’s Pope” for his accessibility and preference to eschew comfort, reports of Pope Francis’ efforts to keep in touch with the common man continue to come out of the Vatican. These include the latest reports — which started as a rumor last month but has now been confirmed by a Vatican source — of Pope Francis removing his trademark uniform to dress as a regular priest to sneak out of the Vatican at night to walk the streets of Rome handing out alms to the poor and homeless. A Vatican source told the Huffington Post that the 76-yearold leader of the world’s largest religion is continuing on a mission he started while a cardinal in Buenos Aires. Plans to reunite the surviving cast members of the 1946 Jimmy Stewart classic It’s A Wonderful Life for a sequel have met with rebuttal from the studio that released the original Christmas feel-good flick. Star Partners and Hummingbird Productions announced last Monday that they hope to reunite surviving members of the original cast to make a sequel about George Bailey’s (played by James Stewart) grandson. Paramount, the studio that owns the rights to the original, has put the kybosh on the plan. “No project relating to It’s a Wonderful Life can proceed without a license from Paramount,” the studio said in a statement on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press. “To date, these individuals have not obtained any of the necessary rights, and we would take all appropriate steps to protect those rights.” An ex-con in the United States who won close to $28 million in 2001 has died in a community hospice in Kentucky with barely a cent to his name. David Lee Edwards, 58, won his instant fortune after buying an $8 Powerball ticket. Although the cause of Edward’s death has not been released, he leaves behind an 11-year-old daughter but no money. Within a year of winning, Edwards is believed to have spent more than $13 million on houses, cars, a learjet and constant parties with friends. By 2006 the riches were all but gone, forcing Edwards to move into a storage unit, which witnesses described as squalid, the Broward Palm Beach New Times reports.